


Cocktail

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A meditation on the nature of the self in the face of constant reminders of one's mortality, Alcohol, Drunk Sex, M/M, Middle-aged dudes doing it, disguised as a simple story about two mad scientists fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 12:29:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6907300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe just a little death.  To keep life interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cocktail

**Author's Note:**

> Not the most imaginative title, I know, but it has the word 'cock' in it, so I consider it an effective one.  
> And, thus, I congratulate myself on inventing another ship that has absolutely no canon support. This is a good day for Gotham fanfiction.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

These things are deadly. A cold space, with colder drinks. Ice cubes rocking rhythmically against glass, as the hands that hold the drinks shake with flat laughter at witticisms as stale as the re-circulated air. It's a tomb. Involuntarily, Hugo shivers, and the shiver spirals into a shudder. It's not even death. It's history. These people are part of the past. This could be an evening from any point in the last fifty years. Medicine never really changes. Hugo raises his eyebrows, regards the ceiling breezily. That is, of course, why it needs to be made redundant.  
Until that time, though, there are conventions to attend. Information, like wealth, doesn't discriminate. You might find a gem in the gutter as easily as one set into a crown of gold. Hugo's always been a researcher, at heart. It's exercise for the mind. Ambling down avenues of set-down thought as one would, dappled paths in a sunlit park. Hugo listens patiently, gently, a soft smile on his face, a drink in his hand. The drink is constantly replenished, so the smile remains constant. Ethel advised against leaving Gotham at such a delicate time, but Ethel has no imagination. She's never understood that invention's a process of combustion. It needs fuel. In isolation, the intellect will just burn itself up.  
"Aren't these things dreadful?" The voice is familiar, but Hugo's mind is both softened by the alcohol and made tense by the frigid air, so he doesn't recognize it immediately. There only comes the thrill of retrieved knowledge, the pleasure of knowing. Before he can fully engage with his impressions, his body's already working. His heart beats faster. His skin sings. The movement enjoyably disorienting in its fluidity, he turns his head.  
Oh.  
"Yes," Hugo says, pursing his lips, "They draw out the most unpleasant people."  
"Oh, you mean me," Dulmacher laughs.  
Hugo feels his mouth draw in further, into an actual pout. "Yes. That's exactly what I meant."  
"And you- why are you here? Aren't you above all of this- this shop talk? Isn't a genius like yours, surely, in need of no enrichment? Or do you just come here to lord it over us plebeians?"  
"Shouldn't you be back on your private island, with your rich patients, playing with your dolls?" His voice is as runny as the collection of melting ice cubes left in his glass. He raises it, and is brought a new one. A long drink pushes down the sudden swell of shame at the burgeoning slur to his voice.  
"A low blow- but not an original one. I'm actually considering having 'Doll-maker' copyrighted. At least, if people must print those things, they can bow to the power of paid ownership."  
"And then, I suppose, you'll eventually license the name. Let retirees open up Doll-maker franchises all over the country."  
"And you- what will you do once your private funding dries up? Erect a soapbox in a park someplace, and start yelling at passersby that death is not the end, like any other squalid little evangelist?"  
"Better than being elbow-deep in sagging breasts and pelvic floors; harvesting collagen for the thin-lipped and flaccid."  
"Oh, Hugo," Dulmacher laughs, "Once a year is not enough. I always forget how amusing you are until I'm in your presence."  
"Anything to bring some light into your existence. Though, I was told that you might not attend this year, owing to some unpleasantness in your place of business."  
"That," Dulmacher says simply, brow furrowing.  
"Now, from what I understand, some of the raw material got free, and performed some rather crude operations upon you. I didn't get the complete story, though. Were you, in fact, unable to urinate on your own for six months, or to defecate? The accounts I heard weren't clear on that particular point."  
"Inspect the plumbing yourself, and find out," Dulmacher mutters.  
The sensible thing to do, Hugo knows, is to take his obvious victory and walk away. He could have another drink, or another few, in more charming company. Then, to bed, cozy in success. But where's the fun in that?  
"I could just ask the armed guard you no-doubt have stand outside of the bathroom while you attend to your business. Can't have someone getting the jump on you again, can you, Francis?"  
The smile is brittle but dazzling. Dulmacher was never handsome, even when he was young, but he's always had a way of... arranging himself. "No armed guard, Hugo. So, if you were to call for help, no one would hear."  
"When would I call for help?" He's wearing a smile of his own, now. He can't help it. We always reflect what we see before us. It feels good to share with someone in this way.  
"When we're alone."  
"And what would you do to me? If we were alone."  
"That, I haven't quite decided, yet. But I do remember that you've always been a screamer."  
"You like that sort of thing, don't you? That's why you keep coming back for more."  
"Come upstairs with me, and see what keeps me coming."  
Alcohol always makes Hugo hungry for amusement. The more novel, the better. Francis is an old amusement. But one put away and untouched for a long time is almost as good as a new one.  
"If it'll save the life of some poor drifter, who you would have drugged and hauled back home for spare parts after you were finished, I suppose that I can make a small sacrifice." He links his arm with Francis'.  
In the soft darkness of the elevator, it's easy to fall upon Francis, take in the shape and mass of him; the alcohol sweating out of him mixing with fading cologne.  
"I thought you no longer enjoyed the living in this capacity," Francis says, his voice pleasingly low, his hand up the back of Hugo's jacket.  
"And I thought you didn't like to touch bodies you hadn't cut to suit you."  
Whether he's overcome by desire, or simply can't think of a suitable retort, Francis kisses him, holding him against the elevator wall. By the time they get to Francis' room, Hugo's panting, heart pounding, blood electric, so there's simply no place for pride. In the muddle of all those sensations, where would it fit?  
"Show me," Hugo says.  
"Show you what, exactly?" The side of Francis' mouth twitches, as though he means to smile, but he only looks cornered.  
"What they did to you. I want to see the scars."  
"Whatever you heard, I'm afraid, was somewhat exaggerated. There was nothing exotic about it; just a simple beating. Little better than being trampled by animals."  
"So, there are no scars, at all?"  
"I'm a plastic surgeon. You don't think I know how to patch myself up?"  
"How disappointing you are, Francis."  
"I know that it's difficult maintaining an interest in someone who still looks human, but do try."  
Before Hugo can speak, Francis pulls him in close, stealing his breath. Francis' mouth is spiteful, even cruel, and memory fires to life. It's always like this. We are our memories, and Francis never changes; not in Hugo's recollections, and not in life. His hands might be those of a surgeon, but he has a brawler's disposition. He pushes and shoves, and huffs and puffs. It'd be comical if it weren't so effective. Softness will only take you so far. Usually, to an early grave. But hardness. That keeps you alive. It reminds you that you inhabit a body. Reminds you that you're touching a body, and another body's touching you. It's all we truly are, in the end. The soul's just a collection of habits, hardly more than a catalog of bodily functions. It's hard to imagine the purpose of something like that lingering on, eternally.  
Some bodily functions, though, are easier to imagine as divine. Francis tightens around his fingers, pushes against him hard; back arching, belly tensing. Intellectually, he might be brilliant, but psychologically, he's as dull as mud. He likes to be penetrated, but only feels safe indulging himself from a position of complete control. Hugo's underneath him, all but crushed by him. Francis could easily choke the life out of him, with one hand. He's told Hugo so, many times. It seems to make Francis happy. If he did it, what of Hugo would remain in his body, in his brain, to be woken? What would fall away, never to be retrieved?  
"Do it," Hugo says.  
Francis looks at him, pupils like great spots of ink in the dark. "Was?" he shakes his head, as though to shake the German word out of his mouth, "What?"  
"Do it," Hugo repeats, tilting back his head.  
"Do what?"  
He changes the angle of penetration, feels tissue shift around his fingers. He pulls them out, then pushes them back in. Francis closes his eyes, breathes in deeply.  
"Kill me," Hugo says.  
"Yes, Hugo. If you want, I'll kill you. After I come."  
It's meant to amuse, Hugo's shallowly aware, but he can't stop thinking about it. It pushes him on, his body acting automatically now; his mind absorbed. You hate death, you fear it, but you have to wonder what it's like. It's a natural impulse. To want it. As natural as the impulse to flee from it. The comparison to sex is lazy- the outdated notion of cramped, provincial minds groping in the dark- but it lingers. It never quite extinguishes itself in the popular imagination. These are things that your body does without your permission. Most of the time, an adult can control their body's urge to void itself. You can force yourself to stay awake. You can force yourself to not eat. You can't, however, completely halt desire when it's present. You can decide not to fuck, but you can't stop yourself from wanting to. Death is the big 'no', to the big 'yes' of sex. One isolating you, reducing you to your body, and nothing more, as the other seeks merger, communion. How hateful it is to find merit in the fairy tales of primitive societies.  
Francis' body tenses, shakes; he ejaculates, relaxes. It takes him a moment, a long moment, to catch his breath. He's getting old.  
Still breathing heavily, he asks, "Do you really want to die, Hugo?"  
He can't answer. He doesn't know why.  
"Maybe just a little death," Francis says, steadier, now; charming, cruel.  
"Maybe just that."  
Even in this, he has a mean mouth. He'll drag it out as long as he can. Obviously, he enjoys it, but Hugo's never been entirely sure which part it is that Francis does, in particular. The answer is probably deceptively simple. As doctors, they're taught that the body is a machine, full of twitching parts that only assert themselves in failure. There's no opposite of disease; simply the time before it strikes. Doing this, letting Hugo fuck his mouth, is demeaning. For the usual tiresome reasons relating to social ritual and male dominance, but also because it is to pretend, for even a few minutes, that sex is more than a biological imperative. You don't do it because you want to combine your genetic material with that of another human being; the virus that you are, deep down, mindlessly replicating until it's snuffed out. You do it because it feels good. You might be a body, slowly decaying, but before the decay becomes complete, that body feels. It wants pleasure, in whatever form pleasure presents itself. Your body doesn't care about eternity. It cares about now. The filthy, degrading now, when you're naked with another body that your human mind and heart despise, but also find comforting, because you know him. He's familiar. He's part of your life. He's part of you. This is what Hugo's working so hard to prolong. Isn't it absurd?  
Orgasm seems ridiculous. Until it's happening- lighting you up like the heavens for a few seconds that you imagine could arch into eternity. It couldn't last forever, though, could it? Your body would shatter from the strain. It will, of course, do this eventually, from other causes. The human body was made to break. Very soon, though, Hugo will uncover the precise mechanism that reverses the entire obscene processional toward the inevitable. Until then-  
Francis swallows. A doctor should know better, Hugo thinks absently- they aren't immortal yet. He almost laughs, but then, something else occurs to him, suddenly, distressing for reasons he can't place. When there's no final, no large death left, Hugo wonders, to what will they compare this?


End file.
